R O A L S
by Fencing Supplies
Summary: A tale of Simba's adolescence in the jungle and his eventual return as king. In a world where Mufasa survives the stampede – but at a cost - things are a lot less straight forward.
1. But We're Talking Kings and Succession

But We're Talking Kings And Succession

The meteor shower was making thin scars across the night. Rafiki had felt the heaviness of the coming conversation for days now. The wind was wild, and the trees gossiped of a new prophesy on the way. Usually the trees talked of crazy things, but they had it on good account this time.

He would need to be alone to translate these coming messages.

The old rainbow faced baboon was currently sitting by a lake, peering closely at what the meteors were doing in the sky and how the lake reflected them. Many disturbing signs were coming across rapidly, but also, an overwhelming sense.

The true king's journey was ripe to begin.

Rafiki sat down in the wet dirt, stroking his beard in concentration and also mystery. Usually watching from the lake's shores helped to understand, but now it just added to the trouble. The night was full of vicious weather which worsened by the second. On his way back home the next day the spirits were still aflame, repeating their foretelling to him over and over, following him, chasing him, urging him on. The rain was almost flying horizontally!

Rafiki felt cold, even when back in his nest inside the ancient baobab tree. The ancestors still swirled around in the air, and then continued to burn the spirit of the true king into the back of his eyelids. One lean shape, deadly and strong and covered in blood. All he ever did was stand in the dark, head bowed. The shadows would move and squeal; lions, baboons, birds, antelope, zebra, elephant, hog...

_The circle of life, _Rafiki mumbled with a weary sigh. Rafiki did not look forward to the day that this true king arrived, and his dear friend Mufasa had to bear the storm. True king's only arose in times of great rebellion and danger. Nothing the ancestors had told him tonight was good, it all made his heart ache, yet they chattered and danced longer than usual. The stars were sparkling in some secret joke.

The baboons's mind wondered to the young prince. What would come of him? The true king could come tomorrow, or take years to arrive. Would it even me Mufasa that rules the pride lands when the true king come? Rafiki felt the potent potential in Simba, but also the recklessness and uncontrollable spirit that leaked out of ever pore. Rafiki did love the prince dearly, but sometimes the character of Simba was so vibrant Rafiki could only describe it as a _cesspool of_ _rawness_. While he wished life could be easy, and that the energetic golden cub could be the true king all along, Rafiki knew it was not so. He had felt the presence of the true king back by the Ndutu lake. Saw him every time he tries to close his eyes. The true king was a ferocious beast, coiled tight around a vast knowing. His outside was quiet, but the inside was simmering power.

* * *

><p><em>Hot breath fanned down his back. Nala was screaming, and the creatures with the crowd of fangs were chuckling. Simba stretched out into the dark, his little claws scrambling over stone as smooth as ice. He tried to call out, but his throat had closed up. He couldn't move - something was holding him down - his throat was hollow and slick with blood. He was running, Nala panting and slowly falling behind him. They were bigger and stronger and savage, they would kill Nala where she stood, no matter that she was just a baby lioness. He needed to save her.<em>

_Simba leapt forward, Nala rushing along beside him. They tried to scramble up the bones but as they jumped, the rotting bodies beneath them ripped, and they fell down into the gaping mouths of the rank hot breaths._

Simba woke up soaked and shivering. Rain was leaking through the cave roof and had pooled where he'd slept. The nightmare still played in front of his eyes, even as he traced the outlines of the older cubs that surrounded him. If he looked far into the back of the den he could see his parents asleep atop the high ledge. His dad was outlined in the night time's purple light, his huge body all sprawled out and thick mane billowing in all directions. Any cub would be eased by the sight of their protective father, but Simba felt even sicker. If his father hadn't come in time...

Cubs as young as him should be sleeping safe between their parents for at least another five months, but ever since that night Simba felt like he had disgraced himself. He felt unworthy of the nest between the King and Queen, of the spot upon the royal rock. One day he will be king, but Simba seriously doubted that. He couldn't protect Nala, he couldn't even save himself. How was he supposed to protect everything the light touches?

Ever since that day, his father teaches him more and more, but it feels like the boundless energy and innocence of before have left him for good. He will pretend to be chirpy and unaffected, but if the constant nightmares of Nala being ripped apart before him aren't enough, then the deep ache of being weak and useless completed the sense of being pathetic well enough.

He had taken to sleeping with the older cubs, the ones that had left their parent's sides and made a little corner of the cave just for them. They had tufts of manes coming through, and the lionesses already had kill tallies. Next to them he felt like a newborn cub. His mother still carried him around and bathed him for star's sake! Nala thought that it was nothing to be ashamed of, but she wasn't the bloody future king with the pressure of protecting everything the life bloody touches now was she?

Simba moped around for awhile before getting up and shaking himself off, making sure to groom his fur so he wouldn't have to suffer the humiliation of his mother doing it herself. It was still dark, but a pale, weak blue was starting to halo everything near the mouth of the cave. Simba knew that meant that the sunrise was about to begin. He walked out of the den, focusing on the way he moved, trying to prowl like the seasoned hunters did and move sleek and quiet like the fog that blanketed the Pride Lands. The golden cub silently sat on the edge of Pride Rock. His tail curled over his cold paws daintily. His eyes scanned the land with an intensity the cub himself was not aware of. Deep black eyes rimmed in burning red studied all, from the dew that gathered on the wet rock beneath him to the orange creeping over the horizon.

Restless sleep were making his eyes look weary and old, and as he sat on the royal throne and watched over his kingdom just as all the kings had done before him, the smallness of the cub became apparent, and the size of the burden he carried was nauseating.

The top of the sun finally appeared, and light hit the Pride Lands in a flood. Pride Rock was set on fire and his coat glowed, the stirring animals casted long, lean shadows that danced across the flat plains. Flowers and wings unfurled, the clouds that raced across the sky looked like they were jewelled in gold and Simba felt the maturity he had gained over the last self-pitying weeks sting him sharply. He would never have had the patience or the weariness to sit and watch the sunrise and the Pride Land's awake, but here he was now, content and observing his father's kingdom with apt interest.

He wasn't going out with his dad today. Since today there was 'dangerous business about' for the King. Instead, for the first time since the incident in the graveyard, Simba was doing what he used to do before everything began... he would be a cub again. He was to play with the other cubs as the lionesses watched them from the shade. It felt weird to be back in a place that was his entire existence a few weeks ago, but now felt like a foreign idea.

He had changed; he was no longer Simba the lion cub. He was Simba the future king. And newly aware of the responsibilities he had been carrying since birth.

He heard heavy footfalls behind him and knew without looking that it was his dad. Simba never used to spend much time with his father, the massive lion used to leave before dawn and return after dark. Usually whenever the King was at Pride Rock, the Prince was fast asleep from a tiring day of chasing lizards through the grass.

But ever since Mufasa took him out to see the sunrise for the first time, and told him who he was and they were and what this place is, and every since the night in the graveyard, Mufasa has been taking his young son everywhere with him. Simba knew the heavy, but perfectly placed steps of his father.

"You're up early." His father stated as he came to sit beside his miniscule son. Simba shrugged and looked at his paws. Trying to school his expression into one of more cub like excitement.

"I suppose I've just gotting used to watching the sunrise."

His father rumbled deep in his chest, showing his amusement at Simba's answer. The flapping of wings told Simba that Zazu had just flown over, and he looked up to check that he was correct. The studious hornbill was currently perched on his father's broad shoulder, looking down at him with curious eyes.

"I thought you weren't coming today," he said, to which his father stopped from licking his mane and said "he's just watching the sunrise."

Simba looked between the two, their expressions were harder to read that usual and the clear trust between the lion and the hornbill was evident. Simba, not for the first time, wondered what sort of dangerous duties faced the King and his steward today, exactly. He had been told little, and Zazu had been mysteriously quiet that afternoon. He was even worse today as he scanned the sky restlessly for any messenger birds on their way.

Later his mother strolled out of the den, stretching herself as she went. She licked his head once, but did no more besides raise an eyebrow high at his new neat appearance. She groomed and nuzzled her mate and wished the hornbill good luck as the two finally set out into the Pride Lands. She turned and smiled down at Simba as Mufasa and Zazu disappeared into the dancing shadows and orange sunlight.

"So I guess you're back with me today. Excited to get a day off? I should be nice to be back spending time with your friends again."

Simba nodded. He had hardly spoken to Nala at all since the graveyard incident. He wondered how she felt about it, that he was now as absent as the King. Coming and going like a shadow. He wondered if she had known he was the future king all along, or had been as oblivious as he had been. He got a little excited at the prospect of spending the day with Nala, but still, he was the youngest cub in the entire pride, and he had a feeling today was just going to open his eyes more as to how pathetic he was, and how stupid he used to sound with all his big talk of fighting off hyenas if he ever met them and taking down a buffalo if they just gave him a chance.

He walked back into the den close by his mother's side. His eyes downcast to the rock. Ancient kings had long ago worked the stone smooth with their countless footsteps, but still Simba was so sleepy he managed to stumble.

* * *

><p>Mufasa and Scar strolled along through the lush grass, their manes intermingling as they bumped shoulders and padded side by side. Zazu had flown off to relay a message, leaving the brothers alone. The two beasts walked side by side and leaned into one another when serious business was being discussed. In times of danger to the pride, the two males would often work closely together.<p>

Mufasa was a brute, testing the limits of how big his species could grow, his muscles seemed to fight and roll under his golden coat with every confident movement he made. Next to the golden example, Scar looked like a shadow – a dangerous shadow - but a thin shadow nonetheless.

Mufasa paused to study the horizon with an intent look so focused, that Scar just had to roll his eyes silently. Magic? Senses? Instinct? Or was it a kingly knowledge only the King himself was privy to that caused his brother to root himself to the spot and study the empty horizon? God knows, he did it enough times, there had to be a reason.

The golden king's tail started to swipe, the only outward sign that he had become agitated. His shadowy brother walked a few paces and flopped down in the grass like a boneless carcass. Leaves became entangled in his wild black mane as he rolled and rubbed against the scratchy ground. He paused and sat up quickly, observing his brainless brother.

"Mufasa what could you _possibly_ be looking at?"

The golden brother's tail stilled at the voice of his companion, but he did not answer until many heartbeats later.

"The antelope are fighting."

"The rut has started?" Scar asked, mildly curious. He tried to watch the horizon again just as his brother did, but he couldn't see anything fighting, anything moving, anything alive at all, for that matter.

"It is too soon."

"Oh, what's it to us, the bucks fight because they got some fire in their blood and suddenly you got to leap off and make things right. Honestly Mufasa, why do you care?" Mufasa tore his gaze from the horizon, where Scar could now see a distant swirl of flying dust, marking where the bucks must be fighting. "Perhaps they were just practicing?" Scar said with a rascally look on his face. Mufasa fixed him with a levelled stare.

"I care because I am King, Scar,"

"Oooooh, that's riiiight. Silly me, I forgot that it was your birth right to boss every individual creature around. I feel so _foolish_ now." He made a feint of being embarrassed, a quiet growl sounded from deep in his brother's rib cage and Scar smirked in himself as he threw himself back onto the ground in a carless sprawl. Sometimes he made it too easy for Scar.

"Let's check the watering hole." Mufasa ordered before walking off with a flick of his ears. Scar growled deep in his chest, deeply annoyed. Forget that he was being forced against his will to help Mufasa and his party of lionesses and hawks to locate some gang of bulls that had been terrorising everything in their path as they travelled east to the ocean.

Scar twirled around and flipped back onto his feet, shaking the loose white dust of his homeland off his dark coat. He looked around for his brother and saw the red maned King walking off.

Because of Mufasa's marching stride, and Scar's dragging, in-no-hurry-whatsoever-thankyou pace, the distance between them grew. They were walking together; honestly, this is what the brothers defined as being together – even though they became featureless lumps in one another's view. Scar muttered and prowled through the grass lands, tracing the sent trial of his brother. Stopped here to scent mark the ground, halted here to talk to some birds, started jogging here to catch up to a gazelle he had recognised. Scar did no such thing, instead he glared holes into anything that dared to cross his path.

Annnd, there we go. Scar had lost Mufasa. Bound to happen really. The wind picked up here where the land raised, and the smell of prey saturated the area.

Scar let out three quiet roars; annoyance quite evident in his tone, the moan that they made echoed across the grasslands that surrounded him, a flock of tiny sandy birds were startled into flight some yards away when the sound washed over them.

The unique booming roar of the King replied from down in the gully a yard in front of where Scar stood. Scar started for it in a lazy wandering gait, sour insults being mumbled under his breath as he planned what sort of earful he would give his brother. Just wondering off like that, the nerve! Scar didn't even want to be here, he could have been in his nice cool cave, sleeping away the heat of the day as he always did. As any sane animal did. His big paws dragged heavily in the dirt as he yawned, tongue curving daintily in his dagger lined mouth. He was even sleepier than usual, eyes sagging quite a bit because of his late night meeting with the hyenas. It was no quick trip to go all the way beyond the border of Mufasa's seemingly _endless _domain and come all the way back before sunrise. But it was worth it, what a cunning plan he had made- oh! _Riiiiiight_…his cunning plan.

As Scar came to the ledge of the gully, he paused and looked down into the howled out once-river. The wind threw his pitch black mane into tangles around him as he looked down on to where his brother sat, Scar watched the King with an absolutely unreadable expression. His clay brown coat was still dusted with the fine white dirt, and his claws were working slowly, making scratches in the shifting pebbles beneath them. The plan, the plan…

_Yeah, be prepared. _

_Yeah-heh... we'll be prepared, heh._

_...For what?_

_For the death of the king._

_Why? Is he sick?_

_No, fool- we're going to kill him. And Simba too_

Down below him Mufasa sat with (oh _of course_, he should have guessed) the antelope who had been fighting before. Well, he didn't actually know, but Scar assumed as much. Or maybe friends of the antelope fighting? Employed to deliver a message, perhaps? The fools weren't even the countless gnu whose migration controlled life on the savannah - why on earth Mufasa wastes his time with irrelevant lesser species such as these antelope was beyond Scar.

They looked like the gnus, with the twisted short horns and the long muzzles. Same size too, could stare a zebra in the eye, though they did not compare to the muscle and considerable bulk of the gnu. They lacked the blacky blue coat as well, with no long white beards full of snarls hanging from their chins. _Kongoni_, the name came to him, the gnu's fine boned and light footed, cream coated cousins.

They were young, Scar thought. Surveying them with his green, deadly gaze. Horns half as splendid as their species grew, not many scars, lanky with spurts of growth. Four of them, fumbling around one another as they tried to absorb Mufasa's every word, awe clear on their faces.

Oh bother, just what Mufasa needs, some easily impressionable adolescents making him feel like a bloody ancestor descended from the twinkling bum holes of the night. The kongoni had probably never seen the King in person before, probably never been hunted by a lion before. Idiots, gathering around an apex killer like cubs, jugulars within a millisecond of being torn open. Gods, this is what one predator to every million of prey resulted in. No respect for the lions. Soon they'll be questioning whether they even need to listen to us. Why do we need a _lion_ king? Why do we even need a king?

Scar decided to fix that, and made a great show of leaning so that he seemed to impose over the gully.

"Mufasa!" He called out, capturing their attention. Just how he liked it, center stage. "We're looking for killer bulls, not awkward kongoni," he teased, and with a simple gathering of his muscles he leapt straight off the edge of the gully and down into its pit, one smooth, elegant, calculated movement. _Like running water,_ he purred to himself as he prowled over the many rocks and potholes which littered the area, eyes fixing on the kongoni bucks each in turn.

They shuffled… restless… unsure…but not willing to leave the King's presence yet, not scared enough to do the smart thing and run like the meal that they are.

"Scar," Mufasa greeted him in a displeased voice, clearly seeing what he was trying to do. "These are the ones responsible for the early battles; I am just explaining to them the significance of their actions." The four boys stood like statues watching the darker lion with the chilling smile slink closer and closer. One flinched, taking a step back. Mufasa turned to them, distressed by their distress.

Wimp.

"I shall be going now, thank you for your time and understanding young kongoni, I hope to see you all with your own herds in the future." The antelope offered their quick, squeaky voiced farewells and staggered over the rocks of the gully as they clambered up, out and quickly away, their restless bellows and moos heard on the wind as they galloped off.

Che, herds of their own, those pimpled, weak bellied adolescents will be flat out getting a lion interested in them let alone a lady.

"Scar why do you always do this?" Mufasa growled at him.

"What? I don't do it _all_ the time." Scar defended, slinking up and out of the gully with far more grace than the young kongoni bucks.

"Would it kill you to be friendly for at least-"

"Friendly? Is that what you want Mufasa? To be friends? We aren't their friends Mufasa, we aren't the god damn herd mates to these pathetic antelope. We're their rulers!" Scar looked to where the bucks were disappearing into specks. "And they're our lunch." He added, feeling himself start to droll.

"That's quite enough Scar," Mufasa thundered. The bigger lion leap up the gully's bank and walked so close that Scar instinctively shielded away, his brother's mammoth jaws within inches.

"_I'm_ their ruler." Mufasa simply stated with a hard glare. It was all Mufasa needed to say, and he knew it too. The larger, ideal male – the King – turned and strode off to the distant shade of a solitary tree which grew like a stranger in the ocean of grass, dust baths and shaky mirages.

Mufasa flopped down in the shade, licking his paws clean as he waited for the upset and sulking Scar to amble his way up to his side.

"Why did you even bring me on this patrol anyway." Scar asked bitterly. "Its not like you needed extra muscle, I'm more mane then I am muscle." Scar's shadowed and heavily lidded eyes glowed dangerously bright as he mocked himself.

"I told you, because coalitions need to keep strong if they want to protect their pride." Mufasa told him, with a voice far too please with himself.

"Next time you suggest such a thing, I _will_ kill myself." With that Scar sunk into the dirt, cooled by the protective shade. Mufasa chuckled, Scar knew it was an act - they had completely polar senses of humour.

"Is it really that bad?" Mufasa asked him.

Scar pretended to think about Mufasa's question.

"Ahh… yes. Yes it is." Mufasa paused in his licking, huffing a breath so great it sent little leaves skittling into the air. The King rested his head on his paws as he prepared to nap in the pleasant shade, safe from the burn of midday as they waited for Zazu to return with news. Scar agreed with this, his own eyelids falling as he lied down on his side.

"There was a reason, actually."

Scar pried his eyes open.

"What?"

"I need to ask you a favour." Mufasa looked troubled, serious, like he had been planning this conversation. This was bound to be interesting, if not devastating to his ego. Mufasa's thought out conversations were always about how Scar wasn't as great as Scar thought, which dampened the day quite a bit. As if the almighty King was without flaws! But of course, one does not point out the flaws of a King. He simply sits pretty and waits for the idiot to fall of his precious rock ledge or something equally typical of Mufasa.

"The King coming to his naughty, disgrace of a brother for favours. What has the world come to?"

"It's about Simba."

"Ah, the royal hairball. What's he done? Offended the rhino prince again? Pissed on one of the baboon's ancient spirit fruits? Annoyed the herds so much they left early? God knows I would."

Mufasa tactically ignored Scar's dramatically said comments and carried on unchanged.

"It's became clear to me after the graveyard incident that he shouldn't be wondering the pride lands alone with just a hornbill to protect him." Mufasa was looking at his paws as he spoke about his ridiculously treasured son.

"He's got the golden coat of a King to protect him Mufasa, you and I both know that's more than enough." Indeed they did, Scar was sickened by the look of pity on Mufasa's face. "But I suppose the Cheetahs are looking more shifty than usual…"

"The cheetahs are not the problem, Scar. You know that. It's the hyenas, everywhere I turn their flooding over the boards, their stealing kills off of hunters who worked for their meals, they are violating laws, they are not playing their roles and are breaking the circle of life."

The precious circle of life, if Scar had a hair for every time Mufasa went on about it he would be a walking puff ball by now. Probably could just _roll_ from place to place.

"What crimes have they committed?" Scar asked, wonder what his hyenas friends were getting up to. These were his loyal subjects after all.

"A few days ago a zebra was killed while she was giving birth, in plain day light. Many creditably sources say they starting eating her while she was still alive."

Scar put on a convincing display of being appalled.

"What is that, two, three violations of the pride land rules? Disgraceful."

"One rule and two laws; Scar," and then, in a move that Scar rarely saw from Mufasa, he swore. "They're fucking driving me nuts. On top of that they attempt to kill my son! I can't have cubs like Simba and Nala wondering around with a bird as their only form of protection."

"So… you want me… to baby sit?"

"It's your responsibility, Scar. Lionesses hunt and lions protect the pride; it's the roles we play in the great circle of life. These cubs are the future of this pride, and I see troubled times ahead. The pride needs to be as strong as it possibly can." Mufasa was growing tired with him, Scar could tell. But he wasn't just going to accept! Chaperoning cubs around all day, putting up with the annoying prince was hard enough during the scarce amount of time Scar spent at pride rock, now he had to bring the cub under his wing. The kid could talk a vulture off a rotting elephant corpse goddamn. Shouldn't there be trained professionals for this sort of thing or something?

"Why can't you do it? You're the bloody King of everything the light bloody touches."

"Scar this is your responsibility!" Mufasa snarled, lifting off the ground a bit as he roared. With a shaky breath Mufasa settled back in the dirt. Scar realised that his own face was twisted into a vicious snarl and he had risen as well, quickly, he tried to relax his body language and consider how this development could help 'the plan'.

"It is your responsibility as a male of this pride to protect its members and its land. I am also a male of the pride, true, but I am also King of the pride lands, and I have just as much responsibility to the herds and the orphans and the weak and strong and the wellbeing of the grass land as I do to-"

"Okay, I get it. Yeesh, I'll do it, just give me a break on all the Kinglyness." He laid his head down in a huff, refusing to look at Mufasa. He could just feel the oaf's grateful smile anyway, so it's not like it helped.

But in reality – this played into 'the plan' _perfectly_.

"Listen, Simba really looks up to you, his 'cool' uncle and all that," Mufasa snorted at the notion, showing exactly what he thought of that. "He's the only cub brave enough to talk to you. I think this could help both of you."

"What are you implying?" Scar asked snappishly. He could just feel Mufasa swelling with pride at the fact that he got to call his equal idiotic son 'brave'. Parents, pathetic.

Mufasa didn't miss a beat as he responded to Scar.

"That you're an unpopular resentful lion with no friends and absolutely hope of attracting a lioness with your current attitude." He gave Scar a stern stare, but the sadistic humour that only Scar seemed to be aware of, was making his eyes twinkle. "I'm really doing you the favour here, practically."

"Oh, woah, don't – no, please - don't try and save my feelings. Why even bother, really?"

Mufasa huffed and went back to napping in the dust.

Harsh.

While Mufasa napped, Scar planned.

* * *

><p>They were going to the fig tree today. He used to love the fig tree, he was the best climber and his claw marks covered nearly every inch of the old branches. But still he could not shake his new found sadness. His mother had noticed straight away and she had whispered to him that time would help him heal. Spend the day sun baking, she had said.<p>

Simba had never been so still or listless in his life. The cubs ran off and jumped around and screamed as they tackled one another. Realising how annoying you used to be is never a pleasant feeling.

The grass was tall and lush, when the mothers pushed through it clouds of crickets and tiny bugs scattered up into the gentle wind. Sometimes there would be soggy ground or puddles of mud, the boys would jump in it and try to splash each other, the girls would scream. Simba just took the easiest path and walked it. He realised half way to the fig tree that he was walking like an old elephant, world weary and steady. Cubs twice his age bounded around and past him, giggling and screeching. Simba felt fury burn inside him as he realised exactly why he was like this.

Why did he have to be king!? When his father told him, he had assumed it meant doing what he wanted, but now a few days later it was all too clear that being king was about doing what everyone else wanted. He wished he wasn't king. He wished he was just a normal lion. He wished his dad never finally told him, never started taking him out with him.

He wished he never got to see what being a king really meant. Why couldn't his father have let him live in ignorance for awhile longer? He was a cub! His fur was still tile marked and his ears rimmed with black, his claws see-through and bendy. Simba was angry at what his pride had done to him. On whose authority was it that he was the heir anyway? Why did the Pridelands need a ruler anyway? Why did he have to witness the dead and hear the crimes of the animals, why did he had to learn how to prosecute them correctly? Why did he have to be all of a sudden almighty, why did he have to grow up so quickly?

Why did his dad make him look into the eyes of the dying zebra? His father had said it would leave him with more questions and no answers, and the only way to answer those questions was to look inside yourself. Why did he do that?

A lioness gently pushed him along to get him walking faster, and Simba spun violently around in surprise. His fur was already half way up and his face already partway twisted into a snarl because of his own frustrating thoughts, and it didn't take much for him to complete the transformation as he rounded on the old lioness. He snarled at her and she stepped back.

That would have never happened before. He would have been batted softly aside in reprime and told off with a growl. Then she would pick him up and caring him the rest of the way to shame him. She could easily still do that.

But instead she put space between them, and lowered her head so that her deep black eyes were staring straight across into his troubled red.

"You have fallen behind," she told him in her croaky voice. Simba tried to bring himself under control and listen for the loud squeals of the cubs. There were far ahead. She turned her face, one way then the other, and looked even deeper into him. Simba looked away in shame. "Something troubles you, young Simba." She was not known as the wise old lioness for nothing. Simba sighed and started walking, she strolled alongside him carefully.

"These days I feel older than you," he admitted. She laughed and did a little quiet roar in amusement.

"That sounds nothing like the pesky cub you were a few weeks ago." _Don't remind me,_ Simba grumbled to himself.

"Yeah, well, few weeks ago I didn't know I'm going to be king of everything." He said, flustered, his bewilderment coming through clearly.

"You know what I hate, Simba?" She said strangely.

"What?"

"I hate that the stupid creatures get to make all the decisions, because the wise ones are too busy questioning themselves." Her words struck a nerve deep inside of him. "Now let's hurry and catch up to the party, my king."

Simba stared at her for a long him as he trotted alongside her. She was one of the few lions left with the true golden coat of the pridelanders. Her eyes were dark and her whiskers were extremely long and crooked. She had a trio of scars running across her chest and her tail had been chewed off halfway. She caught him staring and whisper to him with a trace of good nature 'hyenas'.

_Of course._ Thought Simba. _It's always hyenas._ He couldn't imagine an animal more filthy and vile than them. Where all hyenas like that? Of course they were. Just like how all lions were noble and cheetahs were cheats and crocodiles couldn't be trusted. Zebras were narrow-minded and water buffalos fearless and elephants randomly killed.

Was that the great circle of life? Simba asked himself as he glanced up at the sun through the grass. Around and around? The big kill and the little suffer?

When they reached the fig tree the cubs were already up in the branches. Simba eyed the deep scratch far up off the ground that marked the furthest any cub had gone. He used to obsess over reaching that mark and leaving his own a few feet higher. Now he couldn't care enough to push his way through all the crowded cubs

He went up and sat beside his mother. She purred and reached out to rub her cheek along his side as he walked to her. He settled down and took a deep breath as he attempted to sunbathed for the first time in his life.

He was glad that she didn't say anything, just let him close his eyes and enjoy the evolving warmth of the stone and the sun. It was far better than he had ever given it credit for. He stretched out his stressed body and closed his eyes, listening to the sounds close by and far away, occasionally flicking his ear when a fly walked across his face. The lionesses would chat about hunting and the coming change in the season, they would gossip about everyone, even each other. He felt himself drifting off, finally letting go of all the questions he had been forcing himself to answer. The comment of the old lioness replaying in his mind as he started to sleep.

When the little nose of another cub woke him up, he was ready to kill. He swiped out and battered them away, growling softly and frowning.

"Simba, shut up." Nala's no-nonsense voice sliced through whatever sleepiness he had been hazed with. Opening his eyes Simba glared at the light coloured lioness. She stared back at him with furrowed brows. "Want to go climb the tree with me?" She asked him with a spreading smile.

Okay, something was definitely wrong. Nala hated climbing. She hated being near the other cubs and she hated doing one of his favourite things without a fight over why one of her favourite things was far better. Simba pinned his ears back in worry.

"Okay." He agreed slowly. Nala actually brightened up at that. Nala brightened up at going tree climbing.

"Cool." She said before hoping down off the rock and waiting for him. Simba followed sluggishly, still trying to wake all his muscles up.

When they went out, Nala spent all her time with the lionesses. Getting groomed, listening to hunting tales, learning tricks, sun bathing and watching the herds on the horizon with unconcealed desire. She liked fighting, stalking and exploring. She refused to do anything she struggled at, perfect example being climbing, and she hated being anywhere around any other cub except Simba.

They sat down when they got to the truck of the tree and looked up into the branches for the best place to start climbing. One of the oldest cubs there, Enam, was lounging amongst the roots.

"Good luck she-lion." He cheered in the over done way the older cubs have always done to Nala.

"Hey!" Simba growled, glaring at the bigger cub. His spots had faded and his adult teeth were coming in, even long tufts of his mane were starting to grow. Simba remembered how he used to look up to the older boys. He used to worship them. And when they teased Nala for being a lion in a lionesses coat he used to... he used to...

Dear god he used to ignore it and tell her it would pass. He thought they had a valid point. Nala was nothing like the girls, she beated them all when they brawled which hurt even his ego and she was such a snobby boss sometimes Simba thought she could use a little teasing.

He couldn't believe himself. Just as he was about to walk over and claw the fur off of Enam's back Nala shot back hauntingly,

"Poor Enam, too fat to climb a simple tree," She then collected herself and jumped high up onto the lowest branch, landing on it flawlessly and walking along it with calm balance. Simba watched her go and gathering his legs under him to follow, but just before he did he turned to Enam and scowled.

"Make fun of her again and I will claw your eyes out," he had jumped up into the tree and stalked away too quickly to see Enam do a double take.

He found Nala resting right on the edge of the thick branch, half hidden amongst the fig's copious amounts of leaves and the heavy loads of ripening fruit.

"I like the view up here," she said as he came closer, looking out over the plains again and watching the herds again with eyes sharp with instincts.

"That's the only thing you like up here," Simba grumbled, judging the branch across from the one he was on and making the small jump. His claws lost a hold for a brief moment but he managed to jam his paws into the ruts. His heart was beating hard and Simba finally realised he was smiling.

This was why he loved climbing.

"What up with you Simba?" Nala asked in a matter of fact voice, her creamy coat getting smeared with dead moss and frail bark as she stretched out on the branch. They looked at each other for a while before Simba sighed.

"How long have you known that I'm going to be King?" he asked her finally.

"Since you told me." Nala replied with ease, her tail curling and uncurling lazily.

"Well back then, we though being king was about doing what we wanted." Nala smirked at him and Simba couldn't help but return it as she said knowingly,

"We could do it all our way."

"Exactly." Simba said, glad she was following him so well. "But these past few days I've been learning that it's nothing like that." His voice dropped to a whisper as he felt the pressure come back over him. "It's hard Nala, it's the hardest thing I've ever done." He looked at her, and her expression showed clear concern. "And it's scary as hell." She swallowed and scanned the horizon, and Simba took a shaky breath.

"I'm sorry," she said to him softly. Simba just shook his head.

"Don't apologise, it's not your fault." He could start to hear the other cubs above them, fighting amongst each other and the snapping of small twigs under them.

"My mother says that when we grow up our fears will be a lot smaller, because we'll be the biggest, scarcest animals on the Pridelands."

Simba laughed bleakly. For some reason, he now couldn't even phantom the idea of growing up into a lion as big as his father. He felt stunted and weak, and he couldn't imagine that ever changing.

"You want to try and climb to the top?" Nala asked him, cheered by his laugh no matter how hollow.

"Nah," Simba said, shrugging. "How about we go hunting?" Nala jumped out of her seat at the suggestion.

"I love hunting!" she exclaimed, rushing back down the tree.

_Yeah. I know._ Simba said to himself.

On his way down Simba stopped to look at the girls. They were usually loudly arguing or giggling, but right now they were strangely quiet. He glanced up into the branches just before he jumped down to the ground and saw them, all of them watching him. He made eye contact with one of them before they all looked away and either giggled or whispered quickly. However Nala's sister kept looking on at him, her eyes gleaming with mischief. Simba rolled his eyes.

He _hated _lionesses.

Nala was waiting for him down on the ground, sitting regally and licking her fur smooth. He walked up alongside her, his golden fur mingling with her near white.

"Mouse? Bird?" She asked with ears pricked and swiveling around. Simba smirked.

"Whatever we can find," he said with a mock of evilness in his lowered voice, he dug his claws into the ground and Nala chuckled as their usually childless returned.

She was a natural hunter. She was the best at what she did, and if she wasn't, then she feared to do it. Simba was the only other cub that accepted her for what she was. A tomboy, a brute, an lioness over her head in ambition. Next to her Simba always felt clumsy, but he learns, just like Nala sometimes takes strength from his bravery and tentatively will try something new or try to be civil to the other cubs.

It felt good to be himself again, to play with Nala and the others who joined them when they started to wrestle. Nala came second, beating everyone but Kalifa, but the cubs who were beat didn't mocked her for being a he-lioness like they usually did after losing. Even the oldest boys said nothing. Simba wondered if they had come to accept Nala more while he was away with his father.

Simba was the youngest cub there, younger than Nala and her sister by a few weeks, and the rest by at least a few months. He usually managed to beat the lazy cubs like Adejola and Benji, and sometimes even Nala's sister Berta, but he was never a match for the bigger cubs and Nala.

They sat down in the shade and licked the light wounds they had got during play. The sun was high which usually meant it was nap time, and Simba's eyelids were awfully heavy. He settled down to nap and Nala quickly got up from where she was and curled beside him like always. The eight other cubs sprawled out themselves with great yawns and purrs.

During their nap a shower past over, wetting his coat and making the grass hang with water droplets. On the walk back he and Nala joined the boys in rolled through the new muddy puddles (much to the disgust of the young lionesses who screamed when they got too close – though Benji looked on with secret envy). They pretended to be cheetahs and raced each other home.

It was just what he needed.

The lionesses took them to the big kill they had made last night, now half stripped to the bone. The cubs liked to climb on top and proclaim themselves a part of the hunt that took it down, and make up wild stories of how it played out. All the cubs listened with interest as each took their turn.

Simba would stick his head through the hole in its belly and took around at its big empty ribcage. He pulled the thick skin back and looked at the exposed spine. The boys were working on trying to take the beasts big horns off its head, but they weren't having much luck.

"How did it really happen?" Benji asked her mother from where she sat licking dried blood of her paws. Her mother, Simba's half sister, grinned and bared her fangs.

"The Queen made the charge, and the herd went into a panic." All the cubs gasped and huddled as they tried to listen to the real hunt with intent ears. "They were scared mad, and a few nearly tripped over the very grass they ate. Mother was on the heels of the slowest, but even they were still too strong for our liking." She looked them all in the face in turn. "Then a calf ran around a bank the wrong way, I was on the flank and nearly had him. I swiped a paw at his legs and he fell down, I was on top of him," one of the young lionesses gasped, "and just as I was going to bite down on his throat, the great bull ran up and flung me into the air with his horns." On cue, she turned to reveal the two deep bruises from where the horns had lifted her. "He was strong and brave," his sister said, now looking at the carcass with respect, something that none of the cubs had for it, because they could not comprehend that it used to be something.

Simba had seen things die. He was to be the king. He understood why his sister's tone was so solemn when she spoke of her victory against the gnu bull.

"He sacrificed his life to save the calf. I wondered who that calf is, what he will go on to become." She exhales and smiled at the cubs. "Does the meat taste brave?" Enam shook his head and someone else scoffed.

"Well it tastes brave to me." His half sister admitted sadly.

Later, when the cubs were back to exploring the carcass and eating the grit off the bones, Simba went over to his sister and asked her what brave could possibly taste like.

"Like ash," she admitted without thinking. "Only those who deserve to die, or those you never killed actually taste good."

Her coat was a darker cream, just like his mother, with the same knowing eyes and strong face. She nuzzle him and chuckled.

"Little king's finally asking the right questions." Simba huffed and threw his tail up causing her to chuckled even more. "If my mother where to hear of such teasing she would have you banished immediately!" His sister liked that and pushed him as she rolled over herself. It was a joke she and him had played since he could remember. She liked to make fun of the fact that she and him had the same mother.

Sometimes the cubs asked him what it was like to have such an older sister. Simba said it was like having a normal sister, just that she was grown up enough that they never fought. Ulan and Benji both worried that it meant he could boss them around, even though they were older, but Simba never really bother to treat his nieces any different to the other cubs. It was weird anyway.

His half sister and his mother both came from the lakelands. It was far to the west of the Pridelands, and you had to cross the flatlands to get there. They're coats were the colour of wet sand because they did all their hunting on the banks of the endless inland sea. Sometimes he tried to talk to his mother about her life before she came to the Pridelands, and she would always refuse, telling him that her lions were ruled only by the laws of Blood and Fear. She said it she would tell him of the old ways when he was older. That's why they were called the old ways, because you had to be older.

Simba didn't like having things kept from him.

His sister had once had five other siblings, but she was the only one who lived to escape alongside her mother. She told him more than his mother did. She told him about how her father lost to silver-side and how he and his mute brother killed all the cubs. She said how her mother was the only one that stood up, and those deep scars down her back where what she got for it.

Simba sometimes looks at those scars when the sun hits his mother right, and you can see the grooves in her fur that show where they hide. He used to think scars were cool, but now he knows they can also be very sad.

Sometimes he looks at Uncle Scar's face and wonders what happened. But Scar always tells him a different story each time.

It was just after midday when they got back to pride rock. Scar was back with one of the lionesses, but everyone else who had gone out was still away. She was covered in mud and wouldn't put weight on her left paw. When the cubs crowded close to learn what happened, Scar roared at them to chase them away.

Simba wondered what the rest would look like when they returned. Later Rafiki came with his stick and inspected her, Simba rushed over to his side, knowing that he would be welcome and also very curious to what he was doing.

"Oh no young girl," Rafiki had groaned as he carefully inspected her limp leg. "You've broken your bone in two." She started to cry, and Simba couldn't help but think of the big bones of the brave gnu and how the lionesses had cracked them in two so that the cubs could lick the soft marrow out.

"Can you fix it?" She asked, Rafiki frowned and shook his head.

"I will try," he admitted to her, but whatever he was feeling was making him shake his head over and over again.

"Please young king," she asked Simba, suddenly turning to him, begging him. What could he possibly do for her? "Please help me." Simba started into her eyes, she was young and Simba remembered how that one time she had brought a mongoose back for her first kill, and how Nala had scoffed and told Simba her first kill will be a giraffe.

They had been very little back then.

"Simba, come here," Rafiki said softly, guiding the cub over with his large hands. He guided Simba's little golden paw and placed it gently on the girl's leg. "You feel it?" He asked, encouraging him to trace softly how the bone was at the complete wrong angle. There was absolutely nothing that could be done for her.

_The circle of life is a vicious bitch. _Simba thought as he looked back into her watery eyes. Why did the brave gnu die? Why did his sister kill him? Why did this young lioness break her leg? Why did the shower pass over today and cause her to slip down the muddy bank? Rafiki pulled a small fruit from his stick and gave it to her to chew. Slowly, she relaxed and fell asleep. Rafiki sighed and ran his hand along her leg in sorrow.

"I came to talk to your father," Rafiki told him, sitting beside the sleeping lioness. "I went to the lake for the meteor shower,"

"And your only getting back now? That was two days ago." Simba said in disbelief.

"The lake is very far away for an old baboon, and beside, the ancestors interrupted me numerous times with omens." Rafiki scratched at his forehead and sighed, "so many omens, the ancestors make me crazy."

Simba looked down at the lioness. Wondering if she will be joining the ancestors soon. Maybe that was what she was begging of him. They say the kings have sway over the ancestor's decision; maybe she wanted him to beg on her behalf.

"He'll come back when he has dealt with the danger." Scar said, appearing out of nowhere in an angry huff. "They're still searching for those idiot elephants and probably never will. I reckon they've already crossed into the wastelands." Scar had bent down and said the last through gritted teeth to Simba. "But far be it for my opinions to be taken into account." Scar said with a sarcastic drawl. When he stood up his mane was ruffled, and the sleek black colour seemed to absorb all light and haloed him in darkness. Simba watched him wordlessly, torn between wanting a red mane like his father or a cool black one like Uncle Scar.

Scar seemed to suddenly remember the lioness, and asked Rafiki coolly how bad it was.

"She will never recover." Rafiki said softly,

"That's what they said when I got struck by lightning but here I am now," Scar looked at Simba and grinned widely, "perfectly normal don't you agree?"

"You? Normal?" Simba scoffed as he followed behind his uncle. Scar looked around at the bratty kids, over bearing mothers, the broken lioness and the sad old monkey waiting for his king to return with vigilance. Simba saw it all too.

"Simba," Scar said to get his attention, "you're father sent me back early because I have a special extra mission."

"Really?" Simba asked, skeptical but curious at the same time. His head tilted to the side as he studied his uncle's gleaming eyes.

"He's got a surprise for you, down in the gorge, I'm meant to bring you to meet him." Scar used his large paw to scoop Simba along in the right direction. He quickly got his feet under him and jogged to keep up to his uncle's hurried, long steps. It was strange to set out into the Pridelands during the hottest part of the day, but Simba supposed time was of the essence. He just hoped it wasn't another dying zebra he needed to look in the eye.

The journey to the gorge was hot and quiet. Simba tried asking about it, but Scar would always shut him down with a wicked smile. It only made Simba more curious. It was driving him insane. By the time they started to descend into the gorge Simba and Scar were both panting, though the shaded rocks they climbed down helped lift some of the heat from their bodies.

"Now you wait here, you're father has a marvellous surprise for you." Scar said with ill concealed excitement. Simba felt like he couldn't stand all the dodging around anymore. _Just tell me!_

"What is it?" Simba asked, stepping into shade of the one little tree growing stubbornly in the bottom of the gorge.

"If I told you then it wouldn't be a surprise now would it?" Scar said with a wide smile, walking softly alongside him.

"If you tell me, I'll still act surprised," Simba tried to reason, using the voice he used when trying to make someone believed he was older than he was. Scar saw right through him and had a good little laugh to himself.

"You are such a naughty boy." Scar said, in many ways belittling Simba more than he realised. Simba sat and curled his tail up close, upset that his Uncle was being so stubborn and, really, quite strange.

"Come on Uncle Scar," Simba pleaded, looking him in eye. He would beg if he had to. Scar just put his head in the air and refused him over and over again.

"This is just for you and your daddy, you know, a sort of father son... thing." Scar said in a distracted, detached sort of way. Simba wondered if Scar even knew what it was like to do a father-son thing. He hoped it was something as fun as watching the stars or the sunset, or when his father taught him to swim. But what surprise could possibly be down here? Was he showing him some secret caves?

Actually. That could be pretty cool.

"Well, I better get going then." Scar finally concluded, walking off quickly. Simba look after him in surprise. He was just going to leave him on this rock? What he would give to have been left alone to explore before, but right now he wasn't very keen on being alone in a gorge

"I'll go with you," Simba said, bouncing down the rock after him. Instantly his Uncle tensed and whipped around, pushing him back up the rock.

"No." He said too quickly, startling Simba before laughing it off. "Just...stay on this rock. You wouldn't want to end up in another mess like you did with the hyenas." Simba's excitement dropped instantly, as did his stomach at the mention of the graveyard incident.

"You know about that?" He asked in disbelief. Was his worst nightmare coming true?

"Simba," Scar said bluntly. "Everybody knows about that."

"Really?" Yep. It came true alright.

"Ohhh yes. Lucky daddy was there to save you aye? Ohhh, and just between us, you might want to work on that little roar of yours, hmm?" Scar said as he rested a comforting paw on his shoulders. No matter that the grown lion's paw was half the size of Simba himself.

"Oh. Well, okay." Simba said. So everyone knew, and even the most intimate, embarrassing details! Simba felt wrecked knowing that everyone in the Pridelands had probably heard the gossip by now. How could he ever show his face again? As Scar walked away, Simba felt cheer as he remembered the surprise his father had for him.

"Hey Uncle Scar, will I like the surprise?" He asked, hoping that one last question that wasn't really asking for much detail at all would be enough to crack the mystery open a little bit.

"Simba, it's to _die_ for." Scar said dramatically. Content with that Simba sat down and rested in the shade as Scar walked further and further away. He could hear a bird cry from way up above the gorge, and when he took the time to pause and listen he could also hear the herds close by, their constant moos and bellows echoing down though the gorge. They must be close to the side, Simba thought as he lied down and scowled.

"Little roar. Pfft." Everyone was talking behind his back about his little roar, the weak little king. A stupid lizard crawled down from the bush and ignore him blatantly as he walked past, nose in the air. Simba bet the lizard thought he was a weak little cub too. Well he wasn't! And somebody ought to set those idiots straight or he would... he could...

Simba decided to set it straight himself, and with flattened ears he snarled at the lizard. When it ignored him he jumped down beside it and took in the biggest breath he could.

Focus Simba.

It kept on walking.

Well alright then. With a smirk Simba watched the lizard continue to walk, he eyed it and crouched like a predator ready to strike. Jumping up to it, he focused less on his breath and more on his voice, and as his roar came out the lizard scattered away so quick it was gone when he opened his eyes. His roar echoed all around him and up through the gorge, and Simba felt so happy as he heard it bounce around and fly down the canyon. He felt big. Listening closer, his heart started to skip when he heard another noise jump in.

The rumpling of a stampede, and the startled cries of animals. Birds flew into the air with alarm cries, and the little peddles by his feet started to jump and skip across the ground as the entire canyon shook.

Looking down the gorge, Simba watched in shock as wildebeest started to pour down the side, jumping and skipping down the steep rocks. More and more, until it was like a waterfall and the dust they threw up clouded them into one mass.

Everything in him went cold.

He watched them in disbelief, wondering what they were doing, knowing what was coming for him but not realising what it meant. As the first beast charged closer, it didn't seem that bad, but then the black mass sweeping after them and pushing them forward... one of the leaders tripped, and the many behind it simply charged over it because they could not stop what had begun.

Simba turned and ran. The pounding of their hooves and scared bellows breathed down his back and chased him. They were running from the stampede like him. He was now the leader of the stampede. But they were gaining so fast Simba felt like he was made of stone.

Once he chanced a look behind, and he nearly lost his footing. He was tired and scared. Why didn't they stop? He was the king, wasn't he? Why did they have to run? What made them run?

He managed a few more bounding leaps before he could hear their breathing as clear as his own. He looked above him, and sure enough the first one was over him, beside him, he was suddenly amongst them, desperately trying to avoid the forest of legs and striking hooves that swarmed him. There was no way they would see him down here, no way he would survive. He needed to get out, up out of the rising dust. His eyes locked onto a branch angling out amongst all the wildebeest legs, and he made a mad dash for it and scaled it in seconds with sure feet. But when he made a last jump along its curved truck, he went flying down and missed it. Only his experience in climbing saved him from being flung back down into the writhing mass of the stampede. Sometimes their horns would pass under him, close enough to scratch along the bark.

_Eat your heart out Nala_. Was what flashed through Simba's mind. She used to think climbing was useless from a lion to learn.

The dust was making him cough, and when he saw Zazu he felt so much relief but at the same time so much new panic because _this was real_ and he _needed to be saved_ _again_.

"Zazu help me!" he called to the bird as he slipped and clung to the shaking branch.

"Your father is on the way, hold on!" The distraught hornbill cried, Simba couldn't see him very well, too busy pulling himself up after he was nearly thrown clear off the branch. But he took one fugitive glance at the bird as he flew away in horror.

"Hurry," he managed to say. Trying not to cry.

His father.

His father was on the way to save him again.

He was such a mistake.

On horn caught the branch squarely and the vibration were so hard it felt like his brain got dislodged. He tried to hold on, but he couldn't do it much anymore. He was tired. Before he knew what had happened, he heard the cry of a wildebeest directly underneath him, and felt the force of the blow as the branch went sailing. He was thrown clear off it, and came hurdling down onto the beasts. He had really fucked up. If he hadn't of been such an idiot-

Simba gasped as he was caught and violently pulled in the other direction. He felt where his dad carried him, and gasped in surprised as the ground came within an inch of his nose before swirling into so many different colours as his dad sprinted and swerved through the stampede. There was a great hit and he was ripped from his dad and throw across the floor, he could hear his dad's pained roar rumbled as loud as the hooves.

Simba tried to get to his feet, he looked around and thought to himself that the wildebeest looked in even worse of a panic.

_Probably because of dad's roar_. Simba thought instantly. Then he remembered his own roars just before it happened. He kept having to jump and scramble away from them, and in the dust he could make out his dad running for him. When he picked him up again midstride Simba felt more terror than his entire life combined. His dad jumped up and onto a ledge safe on the side of the gorge, and as he was placed down with extreme care, Simba only had enough time to turn and catch a glimpse of his dad before he was gone again.

"Dad!" Simba cried, the bad feeling doubling and growing and crawling ontop of each other until he felt numb and shaky and ready to burst open and ooze it. He couldn't see him. He couldn't see anything down there. His dad was trapped on the ground as hundreds of his loyal subjects trampled over him.

There was a loud, pained roar, and Simba feared the worst until he saw the massive shape of his dad jump out of the dust cloud. He scrambled to get a hold on the rock wall, with clenched teeth Simba watched his dad pull himself higher and higher with all the power he could muster.

With dread Simba tried to find a way to help. He could rush up the rocks to his side and try to find a way along to the ledge his dad was climbing for.

Yeah. He would do that.

With a new determination Simba bolted away and up the tiny ravine in the rocks. He heard his dads hurt cry, it shook his bones. Simba stopped dead in his tracks and watched with numb shock and denial as the wildebeest went past in a haze. He hadn't fallen. He hadn't fallen. He couldn't see his dad anymore, but that was just because he was on the other side of the rocks. He hadn't fallen. He couldn't.

And then he saw it, watched it in slow motion. His dad tumbling down, flailing and falling wildly. He was grasping for something he couldn't hold, and he was falling so hard and fast that the wildebeest looked like spikes waiting to impale him. The rawness in his fathers last cry made Simba stop thinking at all.

"NO!" Simba cried, all he could do. Just cry. He couldn't tear his gaze from that spot in the air, he didn't know how to.

He didn't know when he managed to regain himself, but when he did he was sliding down the gorge wall, crying and falling and hoping that his dad was still alright. Still down there.

He searched and cried through the empty, dusty wasteland. When a lone confused wildebeest ran by him with a noticeable limp, Simba felt such a strong hatred wash through him that he became plastered to the spot.

And then he saw it, in the swirling dust, limp under the cracked bow of an equally dead and trampled tree.

But he refused to believe that. His dad was stronger than a tree. Dads don't die.

But something in him knew, as he circled and saw the beaten body of his father. His sobs were wrecking his body, and the big lion was nothing but light fur.

"Help!" He cried. But no one was there, just tall dust clouds. How could this happen? Simba went back to his dad's side and tried to believe. There was hope, there could be. Was his chest moving? It could be. Simba pressed himself to his dad, trying to listen for the familiar booming heartbeat.

It was there.

Oh thank god.

Simba was crying now more than ever from equal sadness and joy, he pulled at his father's ears and begged for him to get up.

He started to stir, and when his dad's eyes opened, then looked straight past him. For many seconds Simba didn't know what to do as his dad looked past him, disgust creeping up onto his face followed by anger.

"Simba," Mufasa whispered quickly, like he didn't have the breath to say all he needed to. "Run." Simba was so shocked, his mouth hung open and he couldn't say a thing. His dad kept looking between him and the distance. Like he was tracking something. Simba was about to turn around to look as well when his dad struck him hard and sent him tumbling across the torn up ground.

"Get out of my sight!" His dad snarled, his expression one of pain and desperation. His eyes flickered beyond him, then focused on him with such a burning glare Simba felt his breath catch so much he was barely breathing at all.

"If I ever see you in my Pridelands again, I will kill you. Now get out of my sight before I do it now!" Mufasa launched himself half off the ground, keeping his cry of pain down as he watched his helpless cub stare on in horror. He glanced behind at where Scar was hurriedly stalking towards him, the telltale shadows of hyenas darting around him.

He will not let Scar get to his son. Anything to save Simba, anything. Mufasa looked away from his murderous brother running along the gorge, and to his beloved son crumpled in the dust.

Simba was trampled and defeated, and now Mufasa would be condemning him to a dangerous life of hiding. There was only one way to make sure his son did that right,

"Get!" Mufasa roared, swiping at his son again. Simba stumbled and raced off, disappearing into the dust clouds without a word. He had just enough time to watch the disappearing tiny form of his cub before he felt Scar rake his claws across his face with extreme force. The blow made all his other injuries scream.

"Kill the king!" Scar cried to the hyenas before he too raced into the dust, intent on the trail of a cub he believed knew everything of his failed murder.

"Please, stop Scar, he knows nothing!" Mufasa cried after him in turmoil. He prayed Simba was scared enough to hide and run, scared enough to disbelieve Scar's sweet words if he ever got close enough. One of the hyenas lunged and got a mouthful of his ear and cheek, the creature swung viciously, ragdolling from side to side, tearing his ear to ribbons and yanking his head around in all directions. Mufasa roared and tried to swipe him away. One had his back paw in his mouth and was pulling at it and chewing, Mufasa felt dread as he watched and felt nothing.

One jumped heavily onto his back and Mufasa looked up into her cruel smirk with thunderous narrowed eyes.

"Boo," she said, making all of them fall over in giggles.

_Run Simba. Run as fast as you can. _Mufasa prayed.


	2. The Fear Of A Child Answers

The Fear of A Child / Answers

When he had climbed out of the gorge, only to see the wastelands drenched red in the setting sun, he didn't think twice about throwing himself down and into the thorns. It was where he belonged, some part of his soul knew. He flew like a wingless bird, thorns and baked rock ready to catch him. The anger of his father rolled over Simba and made him shudder where he lay, crumbling. Shame and humiliation hurt him more than the impact ever could. His uncle screamed vile things, and Simba tried his best to not hear any of it, but Scar was right. Even his father didn't want him anymore! What was there to be proud of, anyway? The King had finally seen through the golden fur to the useless cub underneath. Lucky he was so pathetic, to accept his deserved fate like the excuse he was, because otherwise Uncle Scar would have got him. The dark lion had screamed and skittered in a halt where he had been seconds before, the tips of his claws had scrapped his back and the rocks he scattered showered him as he ran into the thick, twisted thorns, no reservation, not even a look back, not even tears to blur his vision.

No one would follow him across the wastelands. There was no hope in the wastelands. Simba supposed it suited now, no hope cub making a no hope journey. No one would bother him if he put an entire wasteland between them.

The night is different when you're truly alone. Stinkier, scarier... more hidden.

The sun set on him leaping, hopeless, into the gigantic thorn wall that crawls up the gorge - they say it's trying to climb out of the wastelands. He ran and ran and ran and tried so hard to focus on his soft white paws striking against the jagged rocks. Sometimes he felt Scar breath down his bleeding back, but his royal Uncle had stopped chasing him long ago. The sun rose on him limping through sand, trying to run but so exhausted all he managed was a gauche shuffle.

The chill of night, which had stunned and soothed him at the same time, started to be pushed away by hot winds and bitter sunlight. An old stunted tree, haloed by her smaller children leaned against the side of the gorge. He had followed the gorge all the way east through the night, knowing that it bended and stretched into the depth of the wastelands for days. His dad had told him that the herds use it as a highway, to find their way into the Pridelands. Before it had sheer walls and a deep ancient floor, now it had reduced itself down to quiet banks, more like two gentle waves in the dry savannah then anything else. Simba pushed his small body in amongst the stunted tree and her children. Further into her twisted undergrowth, creeping along on his belly and wedging himself deep underneath roots. The sand underneath was nice and cool, and the ants that ran along the rocks were peaceful.

A long night of running and soundless tears had taken its toll, his paws were raw and bleeding, a claw was half twisted out and hanging on by a thread, his coat was full of so much pale dust that his natural golden was only a glimmer underneath when the sun hit it right. His breathing was laboured even though he had been going slow for a while, his lungs felt like they were full of acid and his brain felt like it was trying to ring itself and lap up the moisture that trickled out. There were still thorns from his fall cutting deep into his skin and the two gashes chillingly close to his spin from when his Uncle was a second too slow.

He was such a disgrace. There was no way he could get more pitiable than this. Always in trouble, always helpless. And now, actively hunted by his own proud family.

Simba looked back the way he had come. He felt guilt so hard he couldn't breathe and feared his own family so bad it made him choke...then he looked across the wastelands, with the little gorge stretching out like a crooked finger, steadily tapering off and disappearing. East. It made him terrified and excited all at once. A new world, a new start, a chance to just be a lion – a ferocious roaring brawling lion – the lion he always wanted to be, rather than a stupid king. No one knew his name or his past out there, beyond the horizon. East was where the sun rose. When he sat on pride rock and watched the sunrise with his father, he would have laughed if he knew one day he would be running that way, exiled. Shame and fear driving him away, but at the same time, new dreams making his heart race every time he looked up. Hope ran thick in his veins. He got no sleep, he just sat and watched all the horizons and waited for the bite to leave the day.

Soon the coolness of dusk fell, and he ran and ran, all night. He saw nothing but the stars and the barren land, he heard nothing but his pants and the wind flying across the flat like it was bloodthirsty. When the sun rose, the land was alien, and he could see nothing but empty mountains in the distance and flat horizons.

He watched the rising sun. Then he slowly started to chase it.

_Everything the light touches is our kingdom._

Then how on earth was he meant to leave it? There was nothing he wanted more than to just forget everything and run away. He wanted to leave his weaknesses behind and just run...

... and run and run...

Away from it all.

Sorry Nala, sorry Mother. Goodbye the Pridelands, the way you lie quiet like _nothing _but the deepest part of black water, and I watch on as your burn up and rise and become _everything_.

When night fell again he took one step and found himself crying so hard he couldn't work out where to put his paws. He wanted to go home. This was all a bad idea, fueled by the hurt from his father's cutting words and Crazy Scar's claws and hurtful words, and also, his recent sadness. His mother would still want him to come home. Nala would be angry that he left her.

But by the time he decided to turn home, he was lost.

One day he couldn't find the strength to lift himself up out of a grass thicket he had wedged himself deep amongst. Peeking his head out, he looked like a cub shaped clog of dirt stuck between the long whispering grass. Simba watched with eyes gritty and full of dust, his cheeks patterned by oily tears caused from running against the wasteland's powerful winds. For miles the land was a sea of weedy grass, it grew tall, with sharp edged stalks instead of leafy blades. Sometimes he thought he could see antelope watching him from amongst it. But then the air would shimmer some more and distort them back into grass. He was so hungry that his stomach had felt like a ball of bugs all crawling around each other yesterday. Now it felt like an empty space. Like it walked off while he slept, or it fell out when he took that nasty tumble down the gorge's bank. He had been trying to follow it back to the Pridelands, but it folded into a deep canyon with bones on the bottom.

One day the wind carried a faint rotting smell. Simba tried to pull himself up, but collapsed down and let it go, slipping back into sleep. His paws burned, and muscles cramped around his bones so much he was stiff and pained.

In his dream his father watched as he tried to roar, but he could never manage a single sound. He hated sleeping, because each time his father was more angry and hit him more times. Then he would watch on as Scar chased him away, mocking him as he ran but never seemed to move.

Fool for visiting the graveyard. Fool for crying over the dying zebra. Fool for being scared. Fool for running down the gorge instead of hiding in the rocks. Fool for leaving. Fool for getting lost.

The angry squabbling of birds woke him up. Instantly he smelt it. It was a smell that would have made him retch back in the Pridelands, but right now his mouth was filled with droll. Squeezing out of his hide, Simba lifted his nose to the air and breathed deep in pleasure. It was close, very close, dead amongst these rocks... that close. Simba circled and spun around, calculating ways up the rocks. He could hear birds arguing up the top. Backing up, he took a running leap that got him half as high as he expected.

_I really am dying._ Simba thought in detached realisation. Clawing madly up the last few inches resulted in cuts and a shower of peddles. Stuffing a paw into a crack, Simba froze and then bunched his hind legs under him, jumping up and reaching out as far as he could, managing to roll over the edge and fall on his side, letting out a laboured groan as the air came alive with squawking, flapping and cursing. Simba inched his eyes open and glared at the five vultures all crowded around a certain deep space between boulders.

_A lion._

_Alive?_

_Lion baby!_

Instantly they were filtered out, all his attention on where they were gathered. It was down there, and they couldn't reach it. Quickly he stirred and prowled over, they shrieked in rage but fled before him all the same. One did a mock charge, his wings spread wide and head lowered as he hissed and spat, but he froze and fled when Simba locked eyes with him. Hungry red eyes have a power.

There was nothing dead to eat. With realisation Simba looked up from searching the rocks for a mouse or sparrow, to eye the vultures that had started to gather closer to him, their heads dipped and eyes pinning him now. The dead smell was coming from them.

"Little cub looks skinny." One of the vultures whispered in a sandpaper voice. Simba flicked his ear, a little angry at being called a little cub. He hadn't talked to anyone in a long time, and it was obviously taking its toll, his skin prickled from just having them looking at him, let alone addressing him. Craning his neck around, Simba glared at the young vultures. They had grey necks like snakes and eyes like rats.

Maybe his skin was prickling because of survival instincts, rather than new found anti-social habits.

The biggest ones beak was opened half way, like she was trying to show her amusement. Simba had only known one other bird, Zazu, and he was a high class snob (self-admitted) _she _on the other hand was of the wastelands. He didn't know how to read her, or how to respond to her. Her yellow eyes never seemed to blink. Was that normal for vultures?

He must have looked too long, because she stepped closer to the edge and hissed. Did she think he was eyeing her up as a meal? It made his body go rigid in a subconscious predator response.

Simba instantly decided that the best thing to do was to ignore them. With the new height he had a good look out of the land ahead. He studied the bleak hills and rock towers that rose bitterly around the gorge. The landscape was becoming familiar to him the more he wondered in circles, he even had names for a certain few.

The one with the sideways cave. Cracked Rocks, and its sister tower Snake Smell. Bruise rise and The Tree He Had The Nightmare Under.

The gorge these days was less like a deep, carved out river, and more like a valley filled with towers and sometimes even tunnels, with old limestone walls and tiny puddles of water inside. He sat down and groomed his fur as he planned the coming day's trip.

The vulture's eyes were burning holes in him; sometimes he would look up while he was rasping his tongue over his shoulder and every time she was slightly closer.

"Are you lost?" She asked far sweeter than before. Simba had been in the process of running his paw over his cheek, and froze when her words rang though his mind and registered. Slowly he turned to look her in the eyes. There were a hundred flies around, and one landed on his right eye. He closed it and watched her though the other one and it bit at his eyelashes in frustration.

She was deflated, all her feathers pressed close to her body. A feverish gash rode on her shrivelled face, and her claws were filthy and feathers unkempt. She blinked at him and looked longingly.

Simba got to his feet and walked away, hopping down one ledge at a time and lumbering back out into the endless yellow stalks once more, blending in and becoming nothing. He had looked back at the newly named Vulture Rocks only once, and she had been huddled on the edge, watching him go with keen interest.

Some of the flies followed him; he must be smelling rank by now. Maybe the vultures thought he smelt rank too. Maybe they had thought there was something dead down in the rocks too, but it ended up being alive? Flies crawled over his eyes trying to drink from them; they even climbed in his mouth as he panted. But most gathered around his open wounds, lapping at them like a lost herd at a desert oasis. For a long time he fought them and swung at them, but it was like fighting the wind, and he was tired.

He came upon a rise and sat down to study the new view beyond it. He used to sit with perked ears and a tail that never lay still because of so much energy. Now he collapsed in a heap and never moved a muscle other than to pant big large breaths that moved his whole ribcage around. He hadn't eaten in a long time and his stomach seemed to be chewing its own walls in stress. Simba could trace where his stomach was because it was groaning so much and had laced itself now and again with discomforting pain.

_Are you lost?_

She had said it almost _hopefully_. He looked back as he thought of her and her two companions. The boulders they had met upon were still close enough to be in clear detail. He noticed them flying away, like a few fait strokes upon the sky, and everything was so quite in the wasteland that he could hear the shrieking that went on as they flew together.

Hungry, desperate, roaming the wastelands. They had a lot of things in common.

Watching them rise up and soar along, Simba realised the advantage of having wings. He felt jealous of their ability to just climb into the clouds and glide across the wastelands. It would be so much easier to be a bird... he could fly home to his mother.

He walked on, like a damned holy man. But he kept turning around to watch them fly, until eventually he realised that they were trailing him. For two days he travelled with them in the sky above him. Sometimes they would be gone; sometimes they would be right above him, their shadows circling him. At this point in time he was legitimately trying to live off dead grass, but all it did was make him gag and convulse.

One dawn he was sprawled out under a thick layer of dead vines which had grown on a frame work of long dead shrubs. That was the day they first landed. They had hopped under with him, giving his thin body a once over before joking he looked 'ready to pick apart'.

_Get in line,_ he thought. The flies had already eaten deep into his wounds and ripped at his eyes and lips. His nose was the worst off. So soft and fleshy and blistered from the sun - so sensitive too.

"You've not got long now." She had said suddenly. He frowned and wondered why that made them giggle amongst themselves.

He struggled to his feet and she had hopped out from under the shade and into the open, excitedly pumping her wings and telling him to hurry on his journey, though to where she guessed even he didn't know.

_Hurry!_

_Keep running!_

_You're nearly there!_

Simba eased himself up to his feet and dragged himself out to her with his head hung so low it seemed to dangle directly below his shoulders.

"Are you alright?" She asked in a strange voice, like she was holding back a smirk. He turned to look at her, and for the first time she got a good look at him and his face. She gasped in shock and stepped back.

_That bad huh? Spare me the details_. Simba thought to himself, too tired to be bitter. He then mustered all his effort into lifting his head high and squaring his shoulders. Lately life had been quickly reducing into one painful foggy memory.

That was a very bad sign.

_You've not got long now_

_You're nearly there!_

They left for a long time, or maybe he was just failing to notice them? He was getting bad seeing things lately. Noticing _anything_, really.

When the stars where coming out, she stopped and perched on a termite mound, and watched him stumble across the sands to her.

"It's not far now, I can see it clearly with my eyes, lost cub."

She was waiting to pick his bones clean. But like it mattered. He was dying anyway. So what if he had some spectators? At least he wouldn't die alone.

What a true failure he was. Even when there was no one to impress, he still failed. He curled up against the termite mound and closed his eyes.

His father looked more angry than usually.

Simba walked east a few more miles, or at least he thought he was, but in actual fact he was dragging his feet in slow, small circles. At one point he felt his mother nuzzle him to wake up, her concerned voice floating over him. _Don't cry Simba, it was just a nightmare. You're safe now._

That must have been a memory from long ago, because he had not slept safe in his mother's fur since infancy. A stupid need to be strong and big had made him do that, and he wishes with everything that he could go back and curl against his mother and fall asleep to her loud purrs.

The dream of his mother was interrupted when a shocking heaviness overcame him, and claws sliced along his shoulders. Simba cried out and with a gush of wind the heaviness was gone_. Still alive?_ He thought he heard someone whisper in annoyance. _What? You really want to eat him so bad?_

_I ain't never tasted lion before._

_It's just a cub._

_Nice and tender then._

_I vote on letting the cursed soft-heart try her hand with him._

_Why on earth would you say-_

_Look at him! A golden lion. He should have been dead long ago but the demons don't touch him. What's he out here for? A criminal like us? It's a baby for puss and ooze!_

_A baby with big parents._

_Or no parents._

_Or parents that don't want him._

_Parents that can eat both of you, mushy brained twits! A few hours and we feast on the king of beasts, it'll be a legend to tell your granchicks._

_This aint no king, it's a cub._

_But if we were to try and save him, he'll need to be nursed back to health._

_Which is soft-heart's specialty..._

_Why you so interested in saving him all a sudden?_

_He should have died long ago, you said it yourself. Its unholy. A lost lion cub out here, its unholy. It makes my feathers spike nastier than thorns._

_Unholy. _The other agreed.

The word made the big female shiver as she turned around and looked across the sand to the death marked cub. It's bad for business to be going around saving ever dying animal. Meals in the wasteland were few and far between. Fancy ideas about a better life were not for her. They were made big and ugly so they didn't get any ideas about joining the sweet birds of the forest or the happy flocks that jet-streamed from luscious pond to bustling grasslands.

The gods made her bigger and uglier than usual for a vulture. She thinks because the beautiful life of a parrot or sparrow tempts her more than the rest. What she would give to be born a beautiful jungle bird, days spent lapping at exotic fruits and gossiping amongst the competitively fine flowers of the forest.

Life was cruel in the wastelands, but its where she is meant to be. The lion was a bit of luxury she had been looking forward to. It annoyed her that the two brothers where suddenly turning tail on the meal just because they were starting to feel funny. But she was outvoted, and she could respect that – besides – if soft-heart really did end up saving the cub, then she would have to be a miracle maker. And when the cub died, today, tomorrow, _soon_... she would have first dibs.

It's not like soft-heart and that bat shit crazy kudu where going to gorge down her special meal, now where they?

It took awhile to find soft-heart. Usually they spotted her daily, flying the same empty skies lead to a lot of gruff meetings upon the drafts, but today they seemed to be having odd luck (or ill-luck, she supposes).

In fact, it was soft-heart who found them. She was nesting amongst a low tree and spotted them flying across the clouds. As usual she flew out to greet them and attempt talk on weather and migration and such nice nonsense.

Most vultures are shocked the first time they meet soft-heart. They hear the tales of the crazy vulture who shuns meat and lives off grass, they hear the gossip about her latest attempts at preaching grass and salvation for all. Turn the weak my way, save the innocent, follow a better path. They conjure images of skinny foolish bird with bright feathers to match those scatter brained finches that hang about sometimes.

In reality, she looks just like her. With bland brown feathers and white skin, angry red around her eyes and across her bald head. Her beak is strong and her claws sharp. Some say that they look awfully similar, though soft-heart spends time preening her feathers smooths and has a concerned, steady look in her eyes. Herself on the other hand couldn't be bothered with hygiene and is surrounded in a constant haze of boredom and hunger.

Secretly, she's pretty sure her and brave heart are sisters, just like she's sure that ever vulture of her species in the wasteland is a sibling. Her parents are the only pair in the wastelands who can keep chicks alive long enough for them to leave the nest. General rule is, if it is doesn't have an accent then it's a sibling. If the two brothers she travels with weren't quite so idiotic she might have thought them related too. They are big and strong, a characteristic of her family, but at the same time greedy and they're feathers a darker shade. Perhaps nephews, maybe, but not siblings.

Soft-heart is sickeningly ecstatic that they are actually helping her save the weak and defend the defenceless. Or whatever. When they show her, they need to go up and stand beside the cub because he's slim against the ground and the exact same colour as the sand and she can't pick him out for the life of her. Some vulture. She shrieks at them for not moving him into the shade and tells them to go fetch fleshy cactus. The brothers scramble to do her biding but not her. She squats and glares at soft-heart as she goes about preening the lion cub. It looks positively unnatural as she runs her beak through the cub's fur and inspects his injuries.

There is a thorn between his shoulders and soft heart pulls it out. Her feathers whiffle and plaster to her sides in disgust as the thorn keeps going and going and going... Her sister inspects his wounds and asks for grandmother's spit. She's more than happy to leave and fetch when soft-heart starts pulling out another impossible thorn.

The lion has regained consciousness when she returns, and soft-heart has him chewing the fleshy cactus and has dug a pit so he can lie down in cool sand. She oozes the grandmother's spit over his wounds and asks him when he'll be ready to walk again.

The cub flicks his ears and lies back down; eyes closed in relief as the spit coats his angry burns.

"Dose he usually talk?" Soft-heart questions. The brothers giggle amongst themselves with no intent to answer, so she looks down from where she rests in the tree to meet her younger sister's eyes.

"He's never said a word, just a lot of stuck up looks when he was more alive." Soft-heart's eyes are just like her mothers.

"How long have you been trailing him? Where did he come from? Where's he been going? Was he with anyone?"

It's ironic because her mother was more heartless than even herself. If she laid two eyes she threw one from the nest because she couldn't be bothered with twice the work. She told her to do the same if she ever found someone crazy enough to nest with her.

"About five days now. We first met him back near the whistling stones; he was sick and alone even then. He's been following the gorge until recently. He just collapses and wonders aimless now."

She shrugged her shoulders and turned away, determined that the conversation was at an end. No one _liked_ soft-heart, no one actually _talked _to her. She didn't want this, it was the brothers and their superstitions, yet they were the ones acting like they hated the entire situation and would sooner fly to the moon then stand another minute in the company of the leaf lover.

"Well thank you for saving him, he owes you his life." Soft-heart said.

She snorted and turned even further away from her little sister, a bit disturbed by how non-un-pleasant she actual was to be around.

"But you don't need to hang around you know. You should leave." For the first time the brothers looked up from their huddle and squawked with their usual hysteria when it came to food.

"What do you mean? He could still die!"

"You want him all to yourself, don't you?"

"He'll live. He's still strong." Soft-heart said with a cold voice, she regarded the two brothers and their puffed out chests, the way they greedily eyed the cub even though it was them that were too scared to eat it.

"Beat it," she snarled at them. They were hungry and turning rabid. When they looked up at her in confusion, she learned over her branch some more and snarled a bit louder, "go fly to the moon." Which was a vulgar way of saying 'leave and I don't care if you die'.

They did as such. They knew better than to argue with her.

She hopped down onto the ground and spread her wings as she prepared to leave.

"Good luck," she said grouchily over her shoulder as she took off into the air. Soft-heart said something filled with surprise and happiness as she flew, but she ignored it and forced herself to brood over the lost meal instead.

This was all very bad for business.

The air was cool and his body felt eased. He smelt the water and lime stink of the gorge's caves, and when he stretched experimentally, he felt a thick bedding of grass instead of hard ground.

That crazy bird had been right after all. She had promised him a soft bed if he followed her. He couldn't remember much of the journey, just a lot of stops in the shade, and foul sticky meals she kept bringing to him.

She was here. He could hear her, rustling her feathers and the thumping of her heart. It was racing. When he lifted his head to look around she jumped to her feet instantly.

"You're awake! That's good. Please have a drink." She said nervously, inclining her head to the blackness of the cave. Was this a trap? A drink of water, just offered up to him? Simba looked deep in the cave and couldn't help think of the cave in the elephant graveyard that the hyenas had come spilling out of. It also made him think of the small tunnels that had saved him as Scar chased him through the rocks. He could smell water, so there must be water. So she wasn't lying, she was just being edgy about something. Simba struggle to his feet and his ears twitched back and forth as his muscles screamed. He look a few small steps, eyes narrowed as he tried to search the back of the cave for a puddle or a –

There was the sound of gentle splashes, and his paws all of a sudden became soaked and cold. Simba looked down and realised that the floor was water. He looked up again and realised as his mind adjusted that the entire cave floor was a lake. No wonder it looked so dark and empty.

"When the rains come it fills all the way to the top of the cave, you know." The vulture said from a safe distance as he slowly lowered his head and lapped at the water. It was marvellous, cold and wet, it didn't taste like mud or slime at all, which struck Simba as weird. All the water he had drunk in his life had come from the busy watering holes or old ponds. Even the stagnant pools he had found in other caves like this had tasted stagnant and dirty. Not able to resist, Simba waded into the water and lay down with a sigh that echoed around the cave. With closed eyes and held breath, he ducked his entire body under the water and rested for a few moments like that. With the water swirling against his wounds and rubbing the grit out of him. He crawled halfway out and rested his head on his paws and lay like that with bliss. Paws that had been hot and blistered for eternity were finally cool and mending, thorns that had been imbedded in him were finally gone.

His eyes were closed when he felt a beak nip at his ear. It made his heart squeeze and adrenaline rush through him, and when he threw his head up and growled the vulture was already halfway out of the cave in a storm of feathers.

"What were you doing?" He asked, eyeing her well executed escape. She was still struggling to slow her heavy breaths down, and like before, her heart was racing.

"Ah, checking for ticks or thorns I might have missed."

"Thorns?" That was weird, _missed thorns_, he turned his head to the side as he inspected her a new.

"You had," she stumbled over her words and started again. "You had a lot of thorns stuck in you. Would you like me to check that they're all gone?" Simba thought about it before inching himself out of the water.

"Yes please." He said, shaking himself off like a warthog and grimacing as he thought about how the lionesses would have scolded him for getting wet. It was actual very nice, to have her part his fur and rip a few painful ticks from his neck. It reminded him of the times when Zazu tried to smooth his hair down and pull out twigs after a day out exploring. He would say that the Queen would eat him if he returned her cub in such a state. Drama queen Zazu.

Simba chuckled to himself. Then he nearly cried as he remembered his current situation.

"What's your name?" Simba asked the vulture. She was careful to not put him between her and the exit, and Simba thought she seemed pretty afraid considering it was her ordering him around on the way here.

"Sili Nyama, but just call me Sili." Simba nodded and lay his head back down on his paws.

"What's your name?" She asked lightly when she paused in her inspection. Simba started into the dark cave.

"I don't care. You choose a new name."

She complained and went on about that not being right. She tried to convince him otherwise. But in the end she preened in silence, and when they were done, she said "Nia," Simba looked at her funny. "It means purpose. Something that you need, little lion." Simba didn't like it, it reminded him too much of Nala. It was a girl's name as well. But true to his words, he didn't care.

"You're too weak to leave the sanctuary, so stay and rest while I go get something."

"I'm not weak," Simba grumbled as she waddled out on her over proportioned talons. He was used to Zazu's small little feet, good for hanging onto twigs and flower stems. This bird's feet were made to tear what others could not.

Simba looked at his own paws. The cuts where oozing and the bruising still made him want to lie down in the few days he had left and never walk again. The twisted claw was still hanging loose, the vulture, Sili, had tried to tug it out but he had growled making her quickly move on. It was strange, how she was afraid of him now. Like she hadn't realised back in the moment that she was saving a lion, and now she was stuck nursing the most dangerous animal she ever could meet back to full health.

_No wonder she wants to go fetch me food as soon as possible. Doesn't want me to start consider her._

He lay down and watched the darkness as if it held all the answers. What a mistake he was, how stupid he was. What to do now. What the vulture wanted in return. It was a long time until she came back, but the freshly dead mouse in her talons was worth it.

He ate it slowly.

And that was how life was for a long time. He slept and drank to his content, and he had three small meals a day delivered into his paws. It made him feel like he was her chick, squawking and needy in the nest. The bedding didn't help, because it really did feel like a big nest. With the grass all bunched and weaved over the sand that had blown in over the seasons. Every day he got stronger, more alive...

More bored.

Eventually it came to the point that when she left, he would sneak out and sit just outside the tunnel. The view was bleak, the bottom of a gorge - the same gorge actually – and it made his heart clench with panic and shame though it looked nothing like that time.

He would sit down and watch the clouds. It still hurt to walk so he never really felt strong enough to explore anymore than that. There was plants growing in the cracks, and a colony of ants scurried through them and a line went up the well and into the cracks. He watched them a lot too.

_From the crawling ant to the leaping antelope, we all play a part._

When he groomed himself, he would always frown at how bony he was and how thin his hair had become. Once he his only worry was that his mane wasn't growing in yet.

She would return and complain about him being outside the cave, even though he was hardly out of it. _You must rest and stay hidden._

_Why?_

That would make her complain some more about troublesome cubs.

She wasn't scared of him anymore. Sometimes she would hit him on the head with her wing and insult him with curses he had never heard of before, so he wasn't sure just how rude they really were.

One night she brought back a hare. It was a lot paler than the ones back home and its ears where tipped with black. He licked the blood off it, and then for the first time realised that Sili never eat. Perhaps it was because he was finally healthy enough that the sight of food didn't send him in a desperate spiral of _eat,food,eat,eat,food_.

Simba looked up. She was preening herself and rubbing the blood from the kill off on the rocks.

"Do you want some?" He asked, trying to remember what politeness was. She coolly regarded him and her kill.

"No. I don't eat meat." That was confusing.

"But... aren't you a vulture?" Simba asked as he tried to put what he saw and what she said together. It was a slow and odd process.

"Yes." She nodded with confidence.

"So you're a special fruit eating vulture?"

"No."

"So you eat..."

"Plants, succulents mostly, any nuts that I can find. There is a particular type of grass that has a nice taste to it."

"Then you haven't been the one hunting my food,"

"No." Simba didn't know what to think. She was a herbivore but she knew how to hunt. And was a very good hunter considering how well she was feeding him

"You've been killing them." He said, eyeballing her.

"Yeah."

Simba stared for a long time, and she regarded with a relaxed, undisturbed aloofness that grated harshly against his own very disturbed mood.

"I think you're ready to start moving around. I'll take you on a tour of the area midday when everyones asleep_."_

"Okay." Simba agreed. Happiness taking over. With one last look at the perplexing bird he crushed the rabbit's skull and started carefully eating ever last morsel.

* * *

><p>It was midday when he came by. The cub was asleep in the shade and his breaths seemed to move his bones from in and out of his skin.<p>

"He is still weak," I observed, my heavy head bending to get a better look at the king of beasts. Not many saw lions out here, and no one had ever seen a lion this close.

And lived to tell about it.

There was nothing lucky about this cub. He was still small enough to be called defenceless, and the malnutrition will stunt him for years to come. The peculiar friend of mine looked as proud as she did concerned when her eyes rested on her project.

"You're too brave, to mother the king of beasts. It will not turn out well and I will have no part." I turned and left, hoping to leave before the lion awoke.

"What! Why?" Sili squawked, her noisy wings carrying her from rock to my back. "You can't abandon me!" He understood what that meant. He was infamous throughout the badlands for his odd ways. He judges no one and helps all. Talks rarely, but is nearly always singing in a low voice an ancient song to an ancient god. Sili became inspired by his selflessness and changed her life to one of harmony. He finds is very strange what she does in his name.

Mothering lions one of them.

"Fools errand, this is no foal or chick, this is a king." There were queens, knights and clowns. Even the lords and ladies he could understand, but idiots meddled with kings. "Fly away as fast as you can, and do your best to forget all about him."

Sili seemed hurt as she gaped open beaked on his back.

"Why are you so scared of him?"

He tensed. Phantom pains came back.

"I preach to all, you know this, but I do not, ever, let the lions see me. You badlands creators don't know of lion, but I come from outside, and they are stupid with power."

"But he is not stupid with power, he is weak and helpless. He needs protection. I am a bird, I can't fight the hungry away. Please, help me. Help him. He's still just a small child."

I closed my eyes and sighed. In ancient times King's had wise beasts, but today King's didn't even respect another's life, let alone another's council. Could he really teach this cub humility and wisdom? He had lived his life till now thinking that there was no way to change the corruption. Exile had come as a relief to him.

He looked at the cub again, he walked over and inclined his head different ways and thought how small he truly was when he came closer. Tiny, insignificant as the dust he lay in.

In ancient times he would be called a wise beast, and this cub would be called a king. But today he was a no one and the cub was nothing.

"Okay."

I looked in his face and saw the lions that kill my mother, the lions that tore apart my friends, the lions that chased me through the night.

"No."

"Nah! Too late, you can't take it back!" Sili cried happily as she jumped down onto the cub, causing him to cry and jump and fall down again with a groan.

Dammit.

"Who in the bashes are you?" The cub said in anger. I despised the tone, though Sili smiled some more. The cup started to struggle to get her off his back.

"You're teaching him swear words?" I asked her, ignoring the cub as if he didn't even exist to me. Sili smirked as she perched on the defeated lion.

"Its not my fault, I said it only once." The cub scoffed, proving that she was lying like usual. "Besides he only picked up vulture swear words, not any of your special Kudu swear words."

"Kudu do not swear."

"Oh really, well those Kudu ladies out west might have something different to say-"

"First lesson: don't swear around me." I looked the cub in the eyes and my sudden attention to him made him startle. He looked frightened. I tasted sweetness when I saw that.

"This is Upweke, a friend of mine. I've asked him to help you." Sili said to her cub. His ears suddenly lay flat against his skull. Interesting, I wonder what emotion that was. I've never really known a lion well enough to observe their own ways.

"Help me?" He sounded offended.

* * *

><p>Simba was terrified. It felt like something had crawled inside him and oozed cold water. Half of the big antelope's face was gone. He could see his teeth through his cheek and down his neck flowed cuts so wide he imagined he could stick his paw inside.<p>

The big antelope scoffed, causing the loose skin that survived the trauma to his face to billow out.

"Tiny king too good for help?"

Everything dropped to his paws as that word flowed over him.

"What- King? I don't know what you mean-" _How had they known?_ His father had told him never to come back, but maybe his mother or Zazu had sent word to the sky. His Uncle had wanted him, perhaps Scar had ordered him returned?

The healing claws marks along his spine tingled in thought of his Uncle. He had been furious, he wanted Simba to pay for his crimes against the King.

He sighed and hung his head.

"So you know." What were the animals saying? Weak little king who ran off like a fool? Evil prince plotted to kill his father? Spoilt king can't deal with real life? He had hoped that Sili would just think him a normal abandoned cub. He had even been entertaining ideas of growing up here, with Sili to teach him the ways of the wastelands he could make it. Exploring the caves of the gorge, protecting his territory, standing on top of the rock towers and roaring and hearing the deep sound rumble over the plains forever and ever... his own lion, no rules or manners, no policies or expectations. Just the wastelands and him.

"Well you don't pass for a cheetah kid, no matter how skinny you seem." Sili chuckled. "It isn't shameful to be a lion, Nia. You're not like the others." She and Upweke shared a glance before she jumped down to the ground and inspected his chocked up expression. "I get that you don't want to talk about where you're from and how you ended up here, and that's fine, I get it. But we won't judge you for being a lion. You're safe with us."

Judged for... being a lion? Just a lion? Simba decided to stay silent for awhile.

"Thankyou." He offered up to Sili in a confused whisper. She shuffled away from inspecting his face to stand by the scarred antelope's feet. She smiled brightly as she looked between the two scowling creatures.

"You ought to be more excited. You've got permission to go out and explore now! And Upweke is far more wise than me. Come on Nia, look alive." She spread her wings and scrambled her way up onto the high shoulders of Upweke. "Shall we show him the mysterious drawings today, or the enchanted tree?" Upweke lost all his anger as he pretended to contemplate his friend's ideas.

"I'm thinking the secret trail." He said as he turned and left the cave. Simba got a distinct impression that the antelope did not like him, and he was back to blatantly being ignored.

"What! But I wanted to go somewhere exciting today- ah Nia, come on kid!" Sili yelled as she flapped around, getting comfortable on the buck's back. Her large eyes, with the ever present burning stare, followed him as he got to his feet and jogged to keep up with Upweke's long strides. She smile softly when he looked up at her with an unsure expression racing across his face.

"The secret trail is exciting." Upweke mumbled. He flicked his large ears as a fly came too close. Simba wondered what type of antelope he was. He had never seen one like Upweke before.

"Only for boring people." Sili grumbled out the corner of her beak.

"That's because you fly everywhere."

A little time past with Simba following close in Upweke's shadow as he picked a well practiced route out of the gorge and onto the badlands.

"Um, Upweke, sir." Simba said uncertaintly, his neck craned painfully as he tried to look up at the large buck's face.

Upweke didn't seem to hear him. _Great, I can't even talk loud enough to be heard._

"Upweke," Sili hissed, highly unimpressed.

"What?"

"Answer Nia." She scolded, to which Upweke sighed and groaned before stopping and bringing his decorated head down to stare with dead eyes at Simba.

"Um, what sort of antelope are you? I've never seen someone like you before." Upweke's eyes seemed to actually show some sign of emotion as the question was asked.

"I'm a Kudu,"

"Kudu," Simba echoed, trying to remember if he had ever heard of them. When he was being groomed for king he was expected to know every animal. Upweke nodded his head, making his large spiral horns cut through the hot air.

"Specifically the Mkubwa kind, which is the biggest." He stepped up onto a rock and shuffled his way down a dusty bank. "If you've never seen one like me, then you're not from the east." He stopped and frowned at his own words. "There is nothing to the north but acid water and sand, and west is the Pridelands. So you must be from the south, the ridges?" Simba wasn't good at lying.

"I, ah, don't really want to talk about it."

"Nia, sometimes it _helps_ to talk about it." Sili interrupted from high on the Kudu's back. She was always trying to get him to talk about who he was. Simba frowned. He needed to frame his question right.

"How did you know that I wasn't from the Pridelands?" He had to walk behind Upweke now, because the rocks they were weaving through had started to press close.

"There is only one pride of lions in the west, and someone born to them would not find themselves here. They all think they're so fine. I visited for the birth of the royal son a season back, and the way they act, those lions." He turned his nose to the air and Sili laughed loudly. "From what they say, you would think they own the entire world and everyone should be thankful for it."

Simba expected such words to hurt him. But in actual fact they seemed to heal him. The spiteful feelings that burned in his heart were flooded and eased with Upweke and Sili's complaints. He was right to think what he did, why did the Pridelands need a king to lord himself above everyone? He was right, no one appreciated it, it was foolish.

"Wait, did you say you where there for the prince's presentation?"

"Um, yes, I believe that's what they call it. Though I didn't go to the actual showing, that was for royal animals only." Upweke said gruffly. When he fell silent and was obviously not going to talk anymore, Sili snapped her wings to her sides and her eyes were wide with wonder when she turned to look at Simba.

"Oh, little cub, this grumpy Kudu does it no justice. I've heard the stories! It's basically one of the greatest festivals an animal can hope to attend in their lifetime, thousands gather. Plus Prince Simba's ceremony coincided with the returning of the herds. There were millions of creators of all sizes everywhere you looked. The songs and the dances! And you'll never believe the abundance they speak of. Upweke said that where ever he went the grass was soft and grew above his stomach." Upweke grunted in distracted agreement and Sili's eyes were growing bright.

Simba had never seen grass as tall as that, and everywhere he went? He suppossed that must be what his home looked like when the herds where away. He had grown up with the millions a graze, their birthing their foals and fussing about. In a few moons they would be on the march, something which he had looked forward to witnessing. A pridelands with more than half the animals gone? How crazy!

That was back when he was young.

"Why didn't you go with him?" He asked Sili, whose wings half raised in an expression Simba had come to learn meant 'hey now!' Upweke turned his head to the side and regarded her casually out of the corner of his eye.

"You were still eating meat back then; the carcasses would have been too scarce for her and the competition for the few dead was brutal. Hunting is forbidden during the festival."

"Well next time, I'll have to go." Sili said, then she looked around and declared "we should all go!"

"You're going to be waiting awhile, they say the queen is barren now. Only when the prince has his own children will it happen again." _What? Has word not reached here that the prince was gone? _

"Barren?" Simba asked, very dizzy from his pride being talked about like this, with even himself being mentioned. This old antelope had walked for days to celebrate his birth. It was a strange thought.

"Too old to have children."

What? His mother was not that old... was she? His half-sister was rather old, he supposed, which made his mother pretty old herself. He had never realised.

"Did you hear the word about her? That the lion king ordered her to him to keep the bloodline strong. Apparently she was a warrior queen in her home lands, she had slaughtered males twice her size." Upweke said some strange tone. Sili gasped, but Simba was stunned so much he _froze._ Lucky he was walking behind them and recovered without being noticed. Sili had been busy complaining loudly to her chaperon anyway.

"I hate lions, how they think they can just order others around. Sorry kid," she said in a very not-sorry way, "And lion royalty, they're the worst. Always making laws and changing rules. You've got to walk a certain path and you're species can only visit the watering hole at a certain time." She clicked her tongue and tousled her feathers.

"They take what they want." Upweke's face was one of pain, and his eyes were dark.

The tight path through the rocks opened out onto a view that lasted for miles across the thorny grass. Simba's jaw dropped as he studied the horizon and realised he could see the Prideland's mountains.

Home. He could see it. He couldn't tear his eyes away, but at the same time he didn't ... _ache_, like he had before. The previous wish to be welcomed back like it was all a bad dream was gone. He turned and looked at what could very well become his new family.

It was then Simba realised Upweke's scars matched a lion's claws perfectly.


End file.
